Path to Equality-land

Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities

Overview

This activity involves small group work, imagination, and drawing to explore issues of inequality and discrimination against people due to their age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

Art and Design

Humanities

Two 45 minute lessons

13 – 21 years old

Groups of up to 28

Objectives

Behavioural competences

To meet other people on equal terms (disabled, other gender, other sexuality, other nationality, other religion etc.)
To observe inequalities and act upon them

Reflections

To understand human rights and responsibilities

Lifelong learning key competences

Social and civic competences

Materials

2 large sheets of paper (A3 size) or flipchart paper per small group

Marker pens of different colours, enough for all small groups

A map, preferably a hiking map or any other sort of map that shows physical features, for instance, mountains, valleys, rivers, forests, villages, bridges, etc.

Preparation

Familiarise yourself with the map and the symbols used.

Familiarise yourself with Sustainable Development Goal 10

Familiarise yourself with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Prepare examples of discrimination and inequality in your country

Instructions

Defining inequality: Present target 10.2 of the SDGs to the students: “By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.”

a. Discuss what is inequality. Ask the students if they are aware of any forms of discrimination that exists on the basis of people’s status and any kinds of inequalities that exist in your country.

b. If the students cannot give any examples, help them out with examples of discrimination and inequality in your country.

Divide the students in groups of 3-4. Explain that in this activity they will be drawing a fantasy map of how to travel to Equality-land, a country where there is true equality. It will exist in the future, but at present it only exists in people’s imagination.

Ask the students if they know of any folk tales or other stories that use the metaphor of a person going on a journey to present moral ideals. Talk about the way a dark forest, for instance, may be used as a metaphor for evil or a red, rosy apple may be used to represent temptation. The traveler may show moral strength swimming across a fast flowing river or humility helping a distressed animal.

Briefly review what a map looks like. Point out the ways that contours are drawn, the shading for mountains and rivers and the symbols that are used for forests, moorland, buildings, power cables, etc.

Ask the students to get into small groups of three to five people. Hand out the small sheets of paper and pens and give them about 15 minutes to make three short brainstorms on:

what they imagine Equality-land might look like

what obstacles they might encounter on the path to Equality-land

how they would overcome the obstacles

Now hand out the large sheets of paper and the markers. Ask each group to make their own fantasy map to represent the landscapes of the present and the future together with a path that runs between the two. They should make up their own symbols for the geographical features and for the obstacles and facilities that lie along the path.

Give the groups 40 minutes to draw their maps. Remind them to make a key for the symbols they have used.

Come into class and ask the students to present their maps.

Deriefing

Start with a discussion about the way the students worked and how they made decisions about what to represent and about the way they drew the map. Then go on to talk about what Equality-land might look like in reality, and the obstacles to reaching it.

Which of three questions was the easiest to brainstorm? Which was the hardest and why?

What were the main features of Equality-land?

What are the main obstacles which prevent their present society from being the ideal Equality-land?

What needs to change in order to build a society where there is equality?

In relation to the right not to be discriminated against, can policies of positive discrimination be justified as short-term measures to boost equality?

If you had to rate your country amongst all the countries of the world for equality of opportunity for both men and women, how would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10? 1 is very unequal, 10 is almost ideal equality.

Which groups are discriminated against in your society? How is this manifested? Which human rights are being violated?

How can disadvantaged groups be empowered to claim their rights?

What role has education to play in empowerment?

What role has human rights education to play in empowerment?

Follow up suggestions

Write a free essay on inequality. Get inspiration from the links below and do further research on the topic.

Watch the documentary film Inequality for All by Jacob Kornbluth (2013) and conduct a debriefing afterwards.

3. Ask students to research upon why Goal 10 is important and what reduced inequalities would mean for the world (e.g. for world’s economy, global health, education). Ask students reflect on what they themselves can do every day to reduce inequalities.

Ideas for actions

Ask the students to reflect upon inequalities in their school and elaborate a petition for the school management that addresses them. Encourage students to show in their petition the long-term benefits of the changes they call upon.